Dashboards can be used to visualize data collected from devices. The data can be displayed in various ways, such as graphs, tables, or maps.

Information Model

The information model defines the data format and the structure of the data. It is the common denominator between the device and the dashboard.

Dashboard as a Service

Dashboards as a service are backend services, defining data formats and information models. They usually provide

  • a device-side API used to upload data
  • a data storage or cache (sliding window storage)
  • a client-side API used to retrieve data
  • a web-based user interface to view data.

Examples

Self-Hosted Dashboards

Self-hosting dashboards is an alternative to using dashboards as a service. It gives you more control over your data and allows you to use your own information model.

Example

The following example uses InfluxDB as a database and Grafana as a dashboard. Docker is used to orchestrate the services.

  version: "3.8"
services:
  db:
    image: influxdb:latest
    ports:
      - 8086:8086
    volumes:
      - influx_data:/var/lib/influxdb2
    env_file:
      - .env
  collect:
    image: telegraf:latest
    links:
      - db
    volumes:
      - ./telegraf/telegraf.conf:/etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf
    env_file:
      - .env
  dashboard:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    links:
      - db
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    volumes:
      - ./grafana/provisioning:/etc/grafana/provisioning
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
    env_file:
      - .env


volumes:
  influx_data:
  grafana_data:
  
  [[inputs.mqtt_consumer]]
 servers = ["tcp://test.mosquitto.org:1883"]
 topics = ["hello"]
 data_format = "json"

[[outputs.influxdb_v2]]
  urls = ["http://db:8086"]
  insecure_skip_verify = true
  bucket = "${DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_BUCKET}"
  organization = "${DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ORG}"
  token = "${DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ADMIN_TOKEN}"
  
  apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: InfluxDB
    type: influxdb
    url: http://db:8086
    access: proxy
    editable: false
    isDefault: true
    secureJsonData:
      token: ${DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ADMIN_TOKEN}
    jsonData:
      version: Flux
      organization: ${DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ORG}
      defaultBucket: ${DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_BUCKET}
      timeInterval: 1s
  
  DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_MODE=setup
DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_USERNAME=ifuser
DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_PASSWORD=changeme
DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ORG=orgname
DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_BUCKET=bucketname
DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ADMIN_TOKEN=sometoken
GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=gfuser
GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=changeme
GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=